


xv. hearing loss

by icymapletree



Series: febuwhump/febufluff 2020 [15]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Febuwhump, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, and, hearing loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22765555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icymapletree/pseuds/icymapletree
Summary: Tony!Peter yells,I’m right here! I can’t hear you!It’s not that he can’t hear anything, but it’s all somutedand dull that it’s shocking compared to what he could hear before. Normal hearing would feel isolating for him, but hearing loss? He doesn’t think that he’d ever be able to get used to it.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: febuwhump/febufluff 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618837
Comments: 8
Kudos: 107





	xv. hearing loss

**Author's Note:**

> how many times is peter going to wake up in the medbay? idk, however many times it serves me right plot wise.
> 
> special thanks to seekrest not only because she's the best but because this wouldn't exist without that writing sprint (:
> 
> enjoy!

The explosion rocks Peter to his core. He doesn’t really remember where he is or what he was doing, he only knows that everything around him is only light and sound.

It’s so bright, so hot, and so loud that it sounds like nothing at all. _Everything_ sounds like nothing at all, but it’s not like he can see either. It’s just light, and nothingness, and the feeling of Tony collapsing into him.

His skin is seared by the metal suit that lands on top of him. His whole body is on fire, but he is strangely grounded by the feeling of dense weight on his chest as ten thousand little shards of debris pierce his skin. 

It’s hacking and coughing while the smoke pours over him. His ears are ringing, like someone is testing their strength at the carnival inside of his head. 

When the intense volume fizzles away, he hears a familiar but muffled… pitch? Syllable? He doesn’t have very much time to figure it out before all of that everything becomes a lot of nothing.

**x**

It’s a common occurrence, waking up in the MedBay, but the first thing that usually happens when he regains consciousness is that he will hear the beeping of the heart monitor. Though this time, the first thing that he can pick out is the feeling of the cotton sheets resting out his chest.

He blinks his eyes open, and doesn’t smell the antiseptic like usual. The smell he picks up is acrid and so intense that it’s debilitating. When Tony sees him, he darts from his chair to Peter’s bedside. The man’s mouth is moving, but no sound comes out.

 _Tony!_ Peter yells, _I’m right here! I can’t hear you!_

It’s not that he can’t hear anything, but it’s all so _muted_ and dull that it’s shocking compared to what he could hear before. Normal hearing would feel isolating for him, but hearing loss? He doesn’t think that he’d ever be able to get used to it.

He thrashes out of the bed, and everything is in slow motion like when his spider sense is going off. The edges of the vision are hazy, and he’s only distantly aware of the sting from ripping his IV out. 

Tony approaches him in a way that appears to be silent, and he’s taking over exaggerated deep breaths, using gestures to encourage Peter to do the same. 

Peter finds himself imitating the man, inhaling and exhaling with Tony moving hands. It grounds him, but it doesn’t calm him down-- everything is still so quiet and yet so _loud_ that he doesn’t know what to do. 

He can _see_ Tony, but he can’t _hear_ him. It’s becoming abundantly daunting that he might never hear Tony’s quips ever again.

Tony pats the bed, waving Peter onto it. He’s not being condescending or anything-- but it seems like Tony knows something important that he doesn’t know.

Peter does sit down, trusting that Tony knows what’s best-- even though his flight or fight response has been activated and his heart is pounding in his ears despite the fact that he can’t hear it.

He’s breathing heavily and didn’t even realize, everything is so different without the noises to accompany them. Tony reaches onto the side table to pick up a whiteboard and a dry erase marker. Peter finds himself asking if that has been there the whole time.

Tony uncaps the marker and holds the top in his mouth, scribbling onto the shiny white surface. When he passes the board to Peter, the boy notices that the man’s eyes are red and puffy. 

Peter had never seen Tony cry or even be visibly upset outside of a few uncommon moments. The man scrunches his nose in what Peter can only assume to be a sniffle. 

He looks down at the board in his hands, Tony’s capital lettered scrawl written in the middle. _How are you?_ it reads, and Peter can’t help but snort.

He takes the marker in his hand - which is probably broken, by the way the bones feel - but the ache in his body, that’s the least of his problems. He uses his sleeve to erase the remaining writing, and writes _Fine._ neatly in its place. But then he looks at it, and reevaluates deciding to erase the old response and write, _What’s wrong with me?_

He passes it back to Tony, who frowns, but it's not at the whiteboard, and it's not at Peter. The expression is distant, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Tony uses his hand to swipe away Peter’s words, carefully writing his own to replace it.

_Noise induced hearing loss. Sensorineural._

Peter’s heart drops. That’s what Clint has, right? Clint, who’s always asking everyone to speak up and is always adjusting his hearing aids. There’s nothing wrong with that, he has a _disability_ from an accident on a mission - just like him, now, Peter thinks - but he’s not enhanced.

The spider was supposed to stop anything like this from happening to Peter. It’s true that Clint’s deafness doesn’t affect his ability, but for Peter relies on his hearing for everything. He has his spider sense, sure, but will that even work without sound? 

It sets in like it hadn’t before. He has a diagnosis, this is _real_. He tries to blink everything away, but his world won’t fade to black like it would in the movies. 

He erases the writing with shaking hands and replaces it with another question. _Will the spider bite fix it?_

Tony sighs when he sees the board, his whole chest heaving as he bites the inside of his cheek. _The spider might be working as a detriment._

Peter feels tears prickling at his eyes now, searing as they run down his face. It’s taken up until now to feel the burns on his skin, but the tears have lit his face on fire. Now his entire body is aching - but not like his bones were - each material that is touching his skin is like adding kindling to a fire. 

_What does that MEAN?_ he writes, the marker cracking with his grip.

It’s so many emotions, grief for what came before, sadness over what is now, confusion over what happened. When he passes the board back, the memory runs through him quickly like a gushing waterfall-- there was the explosion, the ensuing debris that hit him and ripped through his skin - even though, according to Cho, it’s ten times more durable than most humans’ skin is.

Tony had told him to wear the Iron Spider to this mission, but he refused. It’s only a little HYDRA bust, he had said, but that little HYDRA bust turned into hearing loss that might be permanent. The Iron Spider would have protected his ears, even if it would only be a little bit more than the enforced cloth of the red and blue suit.

The point is brought up in the back of his head but is soon forced to the front by his anxiety-- his hearing loss is his fault. 

_It means that we’ll need to do tests,_ is what the board says when Tony passes it back. The future looks dark and desolate, at least until Tony closes the gap between them that had been like a chasm.

Tony hugs him and squeezes his shoulder. When he pulls away and the boy looks up at him, he mouths _It’ll be okay._ He might’ve even said it out loud, but Peter wouldn’t be able to tell.

**Author's Note:**

> yay! i'm uploading for once. i PROMISE i'll get some more stuff out tomorrow. maybe get caught up some more on writing. or even catch up on reading.
> 
> but some good news! the days i took the breaks on were for a swim meet and to combat the ensuing anxiety of waiting for qualifiers to come out for the next level of competition. but guess what, ladies and gents? i get to move onto the state competition!
> 
> hope you enjoyed! come talk to me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/icymapletree)


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